While I believe that “how libertarian” a candidate is shouldn’t be the only deciding factor in determining whether to vote for them, I feel it’s important we discuss it more than “so-and-so’s position on this is not libertarian”, both with regard to their position on it and whether they address it at all. I recognize this thread will likely turn into a huge argument, and if people can provide me with information to alter my analysis, I will be happy to change it. (If I’m slow in doing so, I won’t be offended if other LFV writers do it, though I’d prefer it if those officially affiliated with certain campaigns didn’t do so, for obvious reasons.)
The three substantial candidates I consider remotely libertarian are Steve Kubby, Ron Paul, and George Phillies. (Despite others including Christine Smith as a substantial candidate, I have seen functionally no presence from her.) The standard I’ll use for “libertarian” will be the LP platform, which I recognize is by no means perfect, but it gives me a set of issues to work with. I’ll consider the candidates in alphabetical order.
1. Steve Kubby
Freedom of Communication: Though this is not specifically addressed in Kubby’s civil liberties issue paper, he is in implied agreement with the LP platform, which is that communication should not be regulated. Kubby states that “I’ll instruct all departments of the executive branch that they are bound by, and expected to observe, the restrictions on government power enshrined in the Bill of Rights.”
Freedom of Religion: Same as above.
Property Rights: Kubby takes an indirect swing at eminent domain in his platform. He does not address the massive amounts of land owned by the federal government, which is a major part of the LP plank on the issue.
Privacy: Kubby calls for the repeal of the PATRIOT Act, an end to no-knock raids, and an end to “don’t ask, don’t tell”. He does not address pre-9/11 assaults on privacy from the government.
Gun Rights: Kubby is very strong here. Like the LP, he calls for the abolition of all victim disarmament laws.
Conscription: Not addressed, which is troubling to me as the entire Democratic Party seems to want to enslave me in one of their “national service” programs. One presumes Kubby is opposed to such things, however.
Reproductive Rights: Kubby does not address abortion in his platform. The LP calls for all laws prohibiting it and subsidizing it to be repealed.
Sexuality and Gender: Kubby is strong here. “Their right to relationships — including marriage — with other consenting adults isn’t pre-conditioned on letting some bureaucrat peek up their skirts or inside their trousers. Their right to serve in the armed forces isn’t affected by whom they date or to whom they are married. And if they’re married in Massachusetts, they’re married in Missouri … just like the Constitution’s “Full Faith and Credit” clause says.”
National Debt: Kubby does not address the national debt, though he does talk of reducing spending. This is a major weakness, seeing as Ben Bernanke and the GAO have warned that the debt may cause a currency collapse in the next decade. Whoops. Kubby says that half of his budget reductions will go towards the national debt (the other half will go back to lowering taxes).
Corporate America: Kubby makes some swipes at corporate welfare, but doesn’t address it very strongly.
Public Services: Kubby does not mention the USPS on his website.
Crime: Kubby hates victimless crime laws. The LP hates victimless crime laws. Everybody’s together here.
Immigration: Kubby agrees with the LP platform here, which is to have a secure border open to peaceful people.
Federal Reserve (not in the LP platform, but critical in my view): Not addressed.
Ron Paul:
Freedom of Communication: Not addressed.
Freedom of Religion: Not addressed.
Property Rights: Paul has this on his front page of issues. He does not directly oppose all eminent domain, but wants to “stop special interests from violating property rights and literally driving families from their homes, farms and ranches.” He also opposes the proposed NAFTA superhighway pased partially on property-rights issues. He does not address the enormous tracts of land held by the federal government.
Privacy: Paul devotes another whole section to this. He essentially echoes the LP platform, opposing federal laws requiring data collection, pointing out the Social Security Number’s use as an national ID and its use in identity theft, and lambasting the PATRIOT Act.
Gun Rights: Not addressed. This is a weakness in his platform, although I think it’s safe to assume he’s a Second Amendment supporter.
Conscription: Also not addressed.
Reproductive rights: Does not believe federal courts have jurisdiction over abortion (the correct Constitutional position), but also confusingly wrote a bill to define life as beginning at conception.
Sexuality and Gender: Not addressed.
National Debt: Says that spending must be drastically cut to eliminate the debt. Essentially echoes the LP platform with added swipes at the Federal Reserve.
Corporate America: Not sufficiently addressed, though his emphasis on Constitutional spending would presumably eliminate much corporate welfare.
Public Services: Not addressed on the platform, but said on the Colbert Report that he would eliminate the monopoly protection given to the Postal Service, a half-libertarian position.
Crime: Not addressed on the platform, though he has consistently opposed the War on Drugs.
Immigration: Wishes to secure the borders and reform immigration while eliminating all subsidies on it. His position on immigration was better stated in the New Hampshire debate: end welfare for immigrants, then immigration will be necessary. Different priorities than most libertarians, but the same basic goal as listed in the platform.
Federal Reserve: Hates the thing.
Freedom of Communication: Blames communication monopolies for high prices. Attacks the internet gambling ban. Does not address the entire issue directly.
Freedom of Religion: Says that he “[defends] freedom of religion for people who hate the practices of other religions. On the other hand, [he rejects] the demands of some religions that the power of government be used to persecute other faiths.”
Property Rights: Phillies condemns all eminent domain takings for private use, but as far as I can tell does not address the issue of the federal government’s large land holdings. (His issues page is somewhat incoherent.)
Privacy: Calls violations of people’s privacy an example of government breaking its own laws.
Gun Rights: Supports the Second Amendment fully.
Conscription: Not addressed.
Reproductive rights: Joins the LP in calling for government to neither support nor oppose abortion.
Sexuality and Gender: Wants to end “don’t ask, don’t tell”.
National Debt: Wants to drastically reduce spending in order to eliminate the national debt.
Corporate America: Opposes corporate welfare.
Public Services: Does not address the USPS, calls for federal tax credits for parents for educating their kids, which is not very libertarian.
Crime: Opposes drug prohibition, calling it a racist war.
Immigration: Here’s where things get whompy. Phillies does not want open borders until all countries are equally prosperous. He also does not want any foreign workers coming to “steal our jobs”. This is completely out of line with the LP platform.
Federal Reserve: Not specifically addressed, but supposedly has said he supports it.
Out of these three, I place Kubby the most libertarian, followed by Paul, and then Phillies. That said, all three of these guys want smaller government, and I would favor any of them in the Presidency over all the current major-party offerings who aren’t Ron Paul. Everybody who wants smaller government wants to go the same direction, and right now the train’s heading the wrong way, so we should cooperate. I consider Paul to be the most electable small-government candidate.
Nigel thanks millions for bringing this us about the financial crisis!!!
If anyone goes to the GAO website and looks around they will find a piece on our fiscal crisis. In it according to the GAO simulation if nothing is done by 2040 taxes will have to double, or spending will have to be cut by 60% to pay for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid ( this is from memory, so take it with a grain of salt and do the damn research!).
Given U.S. history taxes will be raised!
The Concord Coalition, Brookings Institute and the American Enterprise Inst are all promoting this issue. Given that the younger generation of taxpayers will get the bill and that the Democrats and Republicans are ignoring this issue it might be wise for the Libertarian candidates to jump on the ball.
Last weekend I was at a gun show for two days and had a display with this information on it along with a graph of the history of inflation and info on the national debt and the interest rate. I will not tell you it was a hit, but it did get people’s attention.
Every single American has a piece of this financial crisis. A child born in America today gets their very own invoice for $30,000. Think of the ads you could do with that picture alone.
Knowing full well that Americans vote their pocketbooks I am at a loss to understand why the Libertarian Party and its candidates do not raise hell on this issue. Can someone clue me in? Damn near every issue we have can be linked to this one.
MHW
An OPPS! here. This comment “( this is from memory, so take it with a grain of salt and do the damn research!).” was aimed at the candidates and their campaigns, not at the general public.
More later.
MHW
There are three kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can’t.
Incidentally, while I think Wayne Root is dead wrong on some of the most important issues of our time, saying he is not even remotely libertarian is a stretch. Of course, that is if you consider him a candidate; the FEC does not, according to a recent story here by ENM.
Less convincing arguments can, and have, been made that various other R and D contenders are somewhat libertarian. I guess that depends on how far you want to stretch that somewhat.
In your analysis of where candidates stand, you used a candidate interview for Ron Paul, but I suspect you did not go through the available radio and print interviews for Kubby and Phillies. I do believe they have
addressed many of those issues, although not necessarily all on the issues page.
In case they haven’t, a new Q&A may be in order.
Finally: since we have long had a Kubby category, was it necessary to create a new Steve Kubby category? Can all the old posts classified under Kubby be transferred, or will they each have to be edited if we want to do that?
I heard so much about this that I went into the House website and looked it up. One clause of Ron Paul’s bill is the statement that life begins at conception. The other clause stated that for this reason, the Federal Courts would be prevented from interfering in the issue.
What the bill didn’t do was attempt to enforce the conception doctrine on the state level. It merely sought to blockade any federal-level denial of the same. That’s federalism, and it’s restraint.
Nigel,
Thanks for the roundup! I’ve got it bookmarked for use in a near future “do we need more position papers” discussion.
Kubby does address the national debt in his position paper on Taxes and Spending.
Whoops. I had originally planned to include Smith, and then I realized she really hasn’t done much.
Indeed he does. I’ll edit the post to reflect this.
I used a candidate interview for Phillies.
They were both already in the list before I made the post.
Information from the GAO on the Fed’s long term budget imbalance can be found here http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/longterm/
Enjoy.
MHW
And I goofed here “The Concord Coalition, Brookings Institute and the American Enterprise Inst are all promoting this issue. ”
The Heritage Inst. is involved not AEI.
MHW
You’ve misstated Dr. Phillies’ position on education; he does not call “for federal tax credits for parents for educating their kids,” but advocates a tax credit for any person paying for the education of any child. This would allow poor children stuck in failing schools to get a better education without having to wait on slow reform efforts or vouchers.
Beyond that substantive error, there’s no clear support for your ranking of the “libertarian purity” of the candidates you examine. For example, Paul and Phillies have similar positions on immigration, but you characterize Phillies’ position as “completely out of line with the LP platform,” but say that Paul “has the same basic goal as listed in the platform.”
A post that could have been helpful to potential voters ended up being nothing more than choosing up sides.
You include Smith. She’s doing plenty.
Smith on immigration. Excerpt of interest:
“States will have their sovereign right to control the influences and development of their society and its culture based upon their citizens needs and desires, and thus states, not bureaucrats in Washington, DC, will have the right to practice democratic control and legislation over immigration matters in their states.”
Um … can anyone explain what that means, or what’s libertarian about it? It’s … it’s … it looks kind of like the stain on the dress left when “states rights” was raped by Li Peng.
Some of her positions may actually be quite good, but all of them seem to have been written by someone for whom English is very much a second language.
Even when I completely disagree with what you say, Tom (this isn’t one of those times), I can’t help laughing my ass off, even if it’s at my own expense.
This site http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt list the foreign holders of U.S. Treasury notes and it comes up to $2 plus trillion dollars. Now I am not a math wizard, but at 5% annual interest I think that comes to about $100 billion. Please correct me if I am wrong. That suggest we are transferring that much, $100 billion, to foreign institutions at the expense of the American taxpayer.
We also keep 270,000 troops insome 120 nations around the globe. That does not include Iraq, Afghanistan, or Kuwait. One source suggest this cost about 1/4 of our defense budget, or $100 billion annually. I read a few years ago that the American troops stationed in Okinawa were worth about $1000 annually to each Okinawan.
Some years ago, I read an article in Fortune, or Forbes, by I think Doug Bandow that we had spent some $16 trillion since the end of WWII on the foreign deployment of U.S. troops. If that $16 trillion is correct we could have sent half the nation to Harvard, or built four bedroom houses for all of the nation’s families.
Now any way you cut it that is a lot of money that is being transferred from the American workers to their foreign competitors.
My numbers may not be exactly accurate, but I think they are close. These are issues that our competition does not even come close to discussing yet our candidates seem to steer clear of them as well. Sadly Harry Browne with all his expertise in finances didn’t seem to put much effort into exposing this problem and it seemed to be off the radar for Michael Badnarik. Maybe this time around someone, somewhere can do more than just casually mention it. I’ll pray and wait and when asked about abolshing the IRS our candidate can point to issues like this as say this is where we begin and why.
And if not please explain to this younger generation why their taxes are going to go up.
If one of y’all needs more detailed information I’ll try to dig it up.
Just holler.
Michael H. Wilson
In a Last Free Voice article dated July 25, 2007, Nigel Watt mischaracterized George Phillies’ position on immigration. In a comparison of the Libertarian party candidates, Watt said that Phillies “does not want open borders until all countries are equally prosperous. He also does not want any foreign workers coming to ‘steal our jobs’.”
This is not the candidate’s position. Watt’s claim that Phillies opposes the national party platform is in error. Watt’s claim that Phillies says foreign workers will steal our jobs is in error. We request a retraction and a revision of the offending column.
Earlier this week, we released an extended statement on the campaign website (http://philles2008.org) and a press release regarding Phillies’ actual position on immigration and foreign worker.
In the statement, Phillies said, ” I support the Libertarian Party Platform. You cannot have open borders and a large-scale welfare system at the same time. You will go broke. … Someday, the Libertarian message of peace, liberty, and prosperity reach the entire world. All people will then enjoy the freedom and high standard of living we take for granted. In that day, immigration and open borders will be non-issues….”
Phillies’ position on open borders is in exact agreement with the Party Platform, which condemns open borders, saying “A completely open border allows foreign criminals, carriers of communicable diseases, terrorists and other potential threats to enter the country unchecked. Pandering politicians guarantee access to public services for undocumented aliens, to the detriment of those who would enter to work productively, and increasing the burden on taxpayers.”
With regard to foreign workers, “ All too often, we hear claims that we must import foreign workers because Americans won’t do those jobs. ‘Those jobs’ in question are hard, physically demanding, outdoor work that require constant, careful attention to detail. Those jobs should be receiving a wage premium, not be barely- minimum-wage sources of employment. There are jobs that Americans won’t do, notably in the sciences and engineering; we allow foreigners to come here to study, but then require them to leave. Mr. Bush’s foreign guest worker scheme is a corporate welfare deal at the expense of the American worker.”
If you have any questions, Mr. Watt, please feel free to contact me if you would like at my email address. I look forward to seeing the revisions.
Ah, it occurs to me that you may not have direct access to my email address in spite of my having to enter it here to post… No problem.
I’m the Press Director for the George Phillies campaign. My email is PressDirector@Phillies2008.org .
Ron Paul has addressed his opposition to conscription many times,calling it slavery in his newsletter and has even introduced legislation to abolish draft registration. He also voted against expansion of Americorps
I personally witnessed Ron Paul testify for Libertarian draft resister Paul Jacob in Paul’s 1985 trial for refusing to register. Ron Paul’s anti-draft credentials are impeccable!
Would you be willing to spread the word about http://www.draftresistance.org? It’s a site dedicated to shattering the myths surrounding the selective slavery system and building mass civil disobedience to stop the draft before it starts.
Our banner on a website, printing and posting the anti-draft flyer or just telling friends would help.
Thanks!
Scott Kohlhaas
PS. When it comes to the conscription, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
There is only one point on which to properly define what the wage of a particular job “should” be — and that point is the point at which the seller of labor agrees to sell, and the buyer of labor agrees to buy.
The position that it is the government’s job to skew the labor market so as to artificially drive up wages, on the premise that the government can best decide which jobs deserve a “wage premium” is pure Marxist moonshine, so much so that even old union hands like me have difficulty trying to address it with a straight face — and trying to hold the freedom of the labor market hostage to the fate of the welfare state is at least as bad.
Thanks to George’s new press director for highlighting his economically ignorant and thoroughly anti-libertarian “labor protectionism” position.
And thanks to Thomas Knapp for reading into the statement what he chooses to read. The candidate’s statement on foreign workers certainly does NOT call for “labor protectionism” simply because it criticizes the Bush administration’s foreign guest workers program.
Phillies has expressed support for legal immigration, which again is in line with the Libertarian Party platform, and has urged Americans to welcome legal immigrants warmly. This does not equate to “labor protectionism.”
Tom, what Smith means is that she’s running for federal office and is thus concerned with federal policy. Thank you for noticing.
Here’s her complete position on immigration (which, by the way, I don’t agree with 100% and not being officially affiliated with her campaign, I am free to say so).
http://www.libertarianforpresident.com/Immigration-Reform.php
Carolyn,
George:
1) Characterizes not using coercion to manipulate the labor market for the purpose of driving wages upward as a “corporate welfare deal;” and
2) Opines that the manual/menial jobs most people associate with immigrant labor “should be receiving a wage premium” as opposed to having their wages determined through standard voluntary market processes.
There’s really no other way to characterize that position than as “labor protectionism.” As a former union steward, I’ve heard the argument too many times not to know where it comes from.
The default libertarian position — by which I mean the position you’ll get on 90% of issues from 90% of libertarians you ask about those issues — is that free markets, not government manipulation, coercion or mandate, are the preferred instruments for determining prices (including the price of labor).
Far be it from me to suggest that no libertarian should ever stray from the default position … but if George is going to take a position that’s 180 degrees in opposition to the default libertarian position, and do so while seeking the LP’s presidential nomination, he should be prepared to defend that position, not just have his press director pretend his position isn’t what it is.
Regards,
Tom Knapp